The answer to bring carbon levels down is....

The answer to bring global warming and carbon levels down, is......... TREES! Trees absorb carbon, and buisness and industry has cut enough of them down, perticularly in brazil...
perhaps, if we planta as many trees as we can, in time, tey will absorb all this carbon, and replcae the ones that are dying...
but no, instead, they tax us, and lie to us...
What does everyone else think? ITs a natural answer, to a natural solution

Exactly the right answer. Except for a few small details.

There has been a lot of reforestation programs but there are also a lot of industries reliant on timber and cut the trees down quicker than they grow.

The other issue is urban sprawl.
The area I live in used to have a lot of bushland but now it is full of housing estates. If we can get the population down we wouldn’t need as many houses (or as much timber for that matter) but that would require a big war or some big catastrophe . It’s a tough call.

Another option is if we all become vegetarian. Apparently cows produce up to 70% of the worlds greenhouse gases. But then big fast food companies like Macca’s with get upset.
We are doomed to kill ourselves one way or another…IMO

they tax us, and lie to us...

Where do you think the money goes? I bet some of that goes into planting of trees.

Unless we stop or minimize our usage of lumber, deforestation will never cease. Replanting trees does not benefit anyone economically, that's why no true interest in it.

Growing trees is important, but once they mature and do not grow much anymore, they are not very efficient as a carbon sink. They do nothing except act as a storage place for the CO2.

There are some arguments about whether wood used as furniture releases CO2 into the atmosphere since the carbon remains inside the wood. Unless you burn the wood, you don't release CO2 back into the atmosphere. but reforestation is really important to recover carbon sinks.

Apparently cows produce up to 70% of the worlds greenhouse gases.

Since CO2 is considered a GHG, i don't think cows emit 70% of it. Maybe they emit 70% of the CH4 (methane)... but I'm not sure if that is accurate either since CH4 leaks from everywhere (natural gas pipe lines, the degrading stuff under the permafrost, inefficient vehicles and so on).

But yes, if we all turn vegetarians, we would reduce a hell lot of crap being emitted into the atmosphere.

Other benefits include:
- save the grain feed for humans to solve global hunger
- less fossil fuels used by trucks that carry livestock
- will probably see less people having diseases such as high cholesterol, blood pressure and cardiovascular disease by consuming less saturated fat.


[edit on 21-4-2008 by yuwing]

Thanks for the replies guys Well, yes, I am aware tha trees house carbon, yes. Thats how nature designed it to work,
What im getting at is, the government, al gore in specific, wants to make a carbon tax, as an example, tax our car emissions,,,, what uter nonesense.... yet, the industries tha cut down trees, and release the carbon back into the atmosphere, prob tons and tons more than all the cars we use, they don't pay a tax or fine....
Get the idea?

Or just wait for the coming nanotech revolution. We will be sucking carbon out of the air to build our shiny new diamond skyscrapers. =)

Trees are not the answer.

Whilst they might absorb CO2 during the day, at night, they use Oxygen and expire CO2. So the net effect on CO2 levels is effectively zero.

The biggest sink for atmospheric CO2 by a large margin is the ocean, however, with increasing CO2 levels in the sea, the acidity increases, killing off lifeforms.

Also, warming seas reduce the ability to absorb atmospheric CO2, increasing the amount in the atmosphere, further warming the globe and the sea, making it less able to absorb CO2....

Quite a conundrum....

Why do you want to bring carbon levels down? Ice core studies show that in periods of history where there where higher levels of carbon dioxide there were also higher levels of oxygen, and healthier living conditions or oxygen breathing animals. this symboitic effect also benefits plants.

the same periods of time are those of similar temperatures as now, proving that there is no global warming tied to atmospheric Co2 concentrations.



[edit on 21-4-2008 by tha stillz]

Hold your horses don't start planting all those trees yet! Read this article for yourself and find out what trees emit instead of CO2.

But in a study published in the journal Nature, a team led by Frank Keppler of the Max Planck Institute in Germany has found living plants, dried leaves and grass emit methane in the presence of air.

Nor is this gas just a piffling amount.

The researchers roughly estimate the world's living vegetation emits between 62 and 236 million tonnes of methane per year, and plant litter adds one to seven million tonnes.

This would be equivalent to between 10 and 30 per cent of all annual global emissions of methane.
Source

I say just toughen it out and eventually the Earth will straighten itself out. (Well I hope it will without us dying)